Cheap and Easy Container Gardening: Step by Step 

The weirdest thing I have grown in is an old sofa bed we pulled it back to the bare wooden frame and then used the spring section of the sofa bed as a trellis 😆.

I live in a flat with a balcony and last year I tried my hand at growing veg. Despite being a complete novice, I grew chili peppers, courgettes, beans and tomatoes. One thing I tired to increase my tomato yield was to have cherry tomatoes grown in upside down 5l plastic bottles and it worked a treat. This year I feel I've learnt a lot and with fantastic videos like yours, I feel more confident of a bumper harvest. Thanks for your great content and useful tips!

Two Ikea bags, one inside the other. They needed support on the sides to not flop open, but they grew a volunteer cherry tomato, two peppers, and some parsley.

Last year I planted Nasturtiums in an pair of very old cowboy boots! I'd worn holes in them and could never just throw them out. They were hung up on a 2-hook hanger with a Hummingbird feeder, they looked beautifully funny. I should have taken pictures! I love this video, you have such great ideas and I've over-sown so many seeds my greenhouses are just bulging, I need more pots. Thank You!

I’m in my 3rd year. I became very I’ll 2 years ago. My husband and I thought starting a garden would be very healing for me. I’m still recovering and still gardening. We started with two raised beds. Last year added two wine barrels cut in half. Containers this year along with a pallet trelliss. Ben your instructions are priceless! Your attention to detail is so helpful. I couldn’t have done this without you and my wonderful husband. Bee Well Ben. Diana from Colorado.

Weirdest container so far: a leaky tea kettle. It was too pretty to throw out, so now it’s draped with thriving succulents. Thank you for your excellent videos!

Great video! I have 2 canoes (the seats rotted out) they are my most productive raised beds 😀

I put up turned small plastic pots in the bottom of my deep planters as they take up the space and add drainage too.

I put closet coat hanger racks on my fence and the rods between them. I strung grocery bags on the rods and planted peas. 20 bags and a 15x8 wall of peas!

Love that tip about part way filling the pot with organic material and then topping up the last 12’ with the good soil. Game changer!

I used my old hot tub for planting. It’s deep enough no holes were necessary. It’s unprotected so just growing things there deer won’t eat. Save coffee grounds for my blueberries.. I’m container planting some things this year. Carrots, herbs,potatoes. My sister, who is elderly, wants a little garden. I’m using an old bathtub for her to have tomatoes.Ya’all have a blessed Sunday. Thanks again for all your ideas and knowledge you share Ben.

The balcony garden I grew was so much fun. I had morning glory and moon flowers on the balcony around the support post and safety border. People traveling by would slow down to look at how beautiful it was. Now I have a large back yard. The experience gave me knowledge to pass to my kids so they can grow a garden wherever they may live along their journey.

I started my seeds (tomato, pumpkin, potato, cantaloupe, peppers and zinnias) in medium sized McDonald's coffee cups. They're thriving! I transplanted the potatoes into 5 gallon food grade pails this weekend and I'll be planting the rest directly into the garden once it's warm enough.🇨🇦

Cardboard boxes, fabric pots, cinderblocks. and the earth.

I go to the dump and retrieve metal bathtubs. I now have 8. Gave them a good scrub, used plastic pain to touch up any rust and filled with lovely well rotted horse manure and topsoil with some peat moss. Cheap usually free or $3 each, place on bricks so it can drain well and your off.

Thanks to you and your videos I am going around my house finding every possible container in which to plant seeds and plants. Cereal boxes and yogurt containers are being called to a higher purpose, lol!

Thanks Ben I use dry grass clipping to fill and news paper,wood chips, tear up cardboard for the bottom of pots,then fill with compost mix. All of my herbs grow in pots and wooden planter. I have use old buckets,small waste bins. I have use guttering for chives and flowers.

A neigbor dumped a toilet on the corner of my property, and the tow wouldn't come pick it up because it wasn't mine, so I planted pansies in the seat, and petunias in the back. Got a lot of compliments, directed those people to thank neighbor. come autumn toilet was removed! :)

Everyone's unusual containers sound so great! They make my salad leaves in 2l cola bottle troughs seem so tame 😭 I do grow tomatoes in an old bath, and had huge success with wicking/self watering growing in an old fridge.

I've even seen an old car (Mk2 Escort) planted up, you truly can use anything!...Steve...😃

The weirdest thing I've used for a container is a net laundry bag. I worked great and had wonderful results. I planted tomatoes and marigolds in it. I've also used storage bins. Thanks for the great ideas and happy gardening everyone!

I live on an island in Alaska and I used a large tote for holding halibut as a garden box and it was awesome haha nice and deep with a drain plug. I grew various salad greens and flowers in it

Craziest containers I have use are stainless steel 3 compartment sink on wheels, suitcase and red wagon.

Howdy Ben and Rosie!👋 Another super topic!👍 I garden mostly in containers...I grow everything in them...even pie pumpkins, small varieties of watermelon and popcorn.😃 I fill the bottom with sticks and stuff too. For squash I make a compost pit...put food scraps, etc. near grew bottom. They really take off when they hit that compose in place food.😃 I repurposed our son's sandbox and grew food in it for 17 years...collards, lettuce, beets, etc.👩🏾‍🌾 I'm looking forward to next week's post!❤

I mulch my garden paths heavily with fairly coarse wood chips (free if you can get tree guys to dump in your yard!). Every few years, I scrape of the top layer and dig out the well composted chips, which I use to extend potting soil and top off the raised beds.

All those reusable shopping bags from supermarkets - great for potato’s and handles included for easy transportation

Good timing, I can only grow in containers in my back yard, I’ve recently planted potatoes along with some potato fertiliser in an old council recycling bin, so glad you suggested that one

Aww your fur baby is so adorable. I wish ours was well behaved and listen to us. Our fur baby likes to help us dig and eat carrots. cucumbers and especially the strawberries that hangover the pots. Happy gardening.

Beautiful! There really is no shortage of ideas for growing in containers. Bakeries and delis will give 5 gallon buckets away, and they make great growing spots. The bonus is that they are portable. Garden on! Blessings... daisy

Just wanted to say a big thank you. I am now in my fourth year of growing and feel like I can call myself a proper gardener at this point. I've got my head around the local weather and can often problem solve on the fly. However, I am always checking back with your videos and garden planner for confirmation. Here's to a good growing year! 🎉

Thank you Ben! I feel inspired 🪴 after watching your posts. My city garden in the Netherlands has slightly polluted soil, so I grow crops in containers. So far I’m growing some beets, radish, carrot, arugula, quite some herbs, cayenne, paksoi, tomato, cherry tomato, edible flowers, spinach, wild garlic, strawberry spinach and a baby leaf lettuce kind. The cucumber hasn’t done so well yet, but as a beginning city gardener I’m proud of how it’s working out so far. Next goal is guerilla gardening in the municipal empty “green”patches across the street. 💚🍀🌿

Notes to self ❤ ✨Food grade plastic ✨drainage ✨light colored containers in hot climates ✨do soil research per plant (I’ll buy in store ) ✨rocks under the pots to keep drainage open

Weirdest thing ever planted was an old rubber tire lol and my grandma had an old toilet bowl that she planted flowers in lol. I've seen soo many crazy "planters/containers it never ceases to amaze me. Some plants are absolutely relentless and will grow just about anywhere anyway lol. GOD bless Happy growing!

Living in a appartment so I appreciate this video alot . Hope to see more on container gardens as well tips and tricks for very small space garden solutions.

I love this info! Filling the pots half way with sticks and such is so smart! Thanks for that! Working on a Patio Garden now and this is so appreciated!

Just the video I needed before I head to the garden centre tomorrow to get some seeds and plugs. I have a very small garden with no real borders but intend on filling it with containers. Great content! 💚🌱

I have a fairly large back garden but I still plant things like blueberries and tomatoes in pots so I can move them around to chase the sun. I love planting in containers and harvesting spuds in them is so easy.

Just keep making videos. What ever it is I will watch it. I live in Colorado USA so the altitude is a problem but your cheerful optimism keeps me going.

Supermarket crates we had left from online shopping. They make nice big pots and have good drainage built in :)

Awesome! I live in an apartment with a balcony and would really like to plant some produce too! Thank you so much for this video😁

Really helpful! I've already got a load of lettuce growing in big yoghurt pots on a windowsill and I'm just about to experiment with creating a veg garden on a window ledge using milk bottles (food grade plastic!) threaded onto tension rods. If I manage it without killing passers by underneath I might film the results....

I did the same thing with comfrey. I ended up with a container of comfrey plants! Not that I mind, but it was a surprise!

Great tips here, and container planting really does have some great benefits like being able to move your plants to happier locations.

I fight Bermuda grass so I grow exclusively in containers. I once planted in a broken toilet. It was broken before we got to use it so it was hygienic. It all works. Great advice.

Hi Ben, I have used a 1950's wooden tool box to grow parsley in, worked a treat. Also used large commercial coffee tubs to grow shalotts in with impressive results :)

Lovely, thank you, Ben! You have so much ideas to plant things in pots! See you soon!

My soil in my garden is pretty bad so will be amending all year in this season utilizing pots and cow feed tubs to grow in. Thanks for all the great information on container gardening. Really enjoying the video's

Love this channel! Gives me no excuses to not get started growing this spring 😁👍

Thankyou , straight to the point, concise and informative. Too many gardeners think that we want to hear about their lifestyles and spend more time waffling about other things rather than gardening. Good tips here and I'll be back.

I love your analogy to baking a cake! I also love that you are encouraging people that dont have a lot of space!

AWESOME! I am a beginner gardener and learned much!

Thank you, Ben, that was my project for today. I am putting pots under or near underneath of a tree and I may have to move them if they come to trim the tree. This tree has large evergreen leaves that smother every thing. Various challenges but we are going for it.

First time gardening this year since we were both children and you’ve been such an inspiration, I can’t say thank you enough. So much useful information. We have lots of containers and I’ve made some raised planters from old pallets. Trying to grow herbs, a variety of salads and veggies inc potatoes and some fruits like strawberries and blueberries. So far so good, can’t wait to see them grow. Great videos thank you.

Great presentation without a lot of goofy stuff. Good job.

great example of creating your own potting mix. Thank you.

I use some of those blue kiddie pools, but they are not food grade, most of those you have there are not I really don't think it really matters I have been doing that all my life and I am still here

your videos bring me a ton of enjoyment! right now on the last day of april in northern minnesota, im still looking out the window to snow in the yard. i really want to get a bunch of containers going someday! we've had one or two in the past, and its really enjoyable! our ground is very hard to grow anything in (except crabgrass) so id love some raised gardens someday too. thanks for making it all look so much easier than my brain makes it out to be sometimes.

Another great video Ben! I am renting and mainly growing in containers at the moment. Your videos give me hope that I can actually grow pretty well this way, and still eat!

Your fur baby is so stinking cute 🥰 I loved the close ups. Love your videos so informative. I have been going around my town collecting wood pallets to make raised beds and sewed some grow bags. I live in an apartment but have a small porch so taking notes on all these tid bits you have provided ☺️💖

Thank you for the great information about containers. We love your videos.

I have 2 kinds of radishes....3 kinds of carrots...peas and beets. Tomorrow I'll be putting my onion starts in I grew from seed and planting some cabbage seeds. My cabbage starts will go in the garden in a couple weeks.

Your container gardening tips have been a lifesaver for my small patio.

Hello dear friend 🌹😘🌹 Greeting from MACAU CHINA Thanks so much for great sharing ❤️❤️❤️

I grew in a homemade toddlers bed that used their crib mattress after they had out grown the crib.😂 It was painted bright pink and really put a pop of color in my garden, made all my lettuce and radishes really stand out.

Pringles snacks tubes! Halved, with drainage holes drilled, they are good for small portions of herbs or salads

I feel really inspired by your knowledge and expertise. Can't wait for the morning so I can get stuck in preparing my mix

Celery does well in containers too!

Great tips for container gardening! Just a side note, I live in Ontario Canada and this is where peat bogs are, so peat is local to me so not a burden to transport.

Dang it Ben, I wish you'd uploaded this a few months ago when I started my balcony garden 😆 I learnt a few of the points of this video hard way. Like I thought smaller pots would need less watering because they are small... thinking they won't be that thirsty

I live in a small terraced house with a concrete yard.....this, as an ex smallholder, is really frustrating, but i have managed to grow a ton of fruit and veg in tubs and pots. I have a fig tree and thornless blackberry , a pomegranate tree (no fruit yet but it's very pretty!), raspberry canes and blueberry bushes that come back to life every year.....and i plant out tomatoes, chillis and sweet peppers, loads of different herbs, lettuce, spring onions, radishes, potatoes and anything else that will fit in, every Spring. I've covered a giant dog cage with bubble wrap and other plastic, which i use as a small greenhouse to harden plants off and use old white voiles to protect from the summer sun as my yard is South facing......and the brick walls retain a lot of heat. This Spring, i have just aquired a long awaited allotment from the council.....it's a mess and needs a lot of TLC at the moment, but it's all very exciting! I've already got a bucket of horsepoo and nettle tea in a bucket, brewing up there. As the soil needs seriously sorting out, i'm taking a bunch of pots up there so that i have some kind of result from the plot THIS year. I think the majority of this Spring is going to be spent digging up broken glass, nettles, bricks and stones but the pots will also weigh down any covering i put on the soil whilst i try and bring it back to life .......and i'm hoping some beans and spuds will survive in the ground, this year, to grow in the patches that i've already addressed. Having no car (just a shopping trolley and a backpack!) , it's quite a task moving 'stuff' up to the plot , which is half a mile away, and slows things down a bit but we're getting there! All heil the pots and tubs....and the Thermos flask!🌹

I've grown cucumbers in cement blocks.

I liked the garden compost arm chair 😂

I have a small yard and grow fruit and vegetables in pots and grow bags. I never thought to add perlite to the mix! I’ll do that this year!

Great videos, learning a lot from you. Thank you. An old butler's sink with a variety of flowers, which my husband say is not unusual, an old 1940's style mop bucket with tomatoes and a split 100L water butt, sawn in 2 halves for melons and pumpkin. The latter two grown for first time this year.

I grow everything in grow bags. They work great

Hi Ben, great video withlots of advice for growing on pots. Thanks for sharing and take care 🙂

This is so informative and inspirational! Thank you Ben, Rosie and Team.

I grew salad greens in a cardboard produce box from Costco. Worked beautifully!

I love your videos! I like to listen to them when I’m working in the garden. Thanks for sharing!

I lost half of my fence during the last winter storm; so I had the whole thing replaced with hedge bushes to make a natural fence (in a few seasons). The gardener was so amazing to offer me all the pots that the shrubs came in. Saved me over $200 on equipment and I’ve got more pots than I had in mind to fill. So nothing strange yet, just bushels of gratitude 🙏🏻

I’m going to grow some carrots in my big plastic compost bin this year as a trial, strawberries and herbs in hanging baskets and an old leaky watering can is going to be modified to take something, maybe spring onions .

You should be a presenter on Gardener's world. I love your channel.

Dear Ben, thanks for your great tips. I have got a 50 square meter vegetable garden but I also love having some containers around; last year I sewed three grow bags in which I am growing early potatoes and a circle of carrots with a cucumber plant with a tepee in the centre. I am also experimenting with kohlrabi, now only small seedlings, and bok choi, planted in a big recycled concrete container I saved from our local rubbish centre. What is refuse for a person, can be very useful to a gardener. A hug and keep up! Paola

Thank you, Ben! You give very helpful information and we appreciate you!

I'm using cheap, square garden waste bags from places like Wilko. They are about 60cm square, and the same deep. The material is quite porous, so no problems with drainage. If you put a good layer of twigs and prunings on the bottom, they will probably puncture the fabric for even more drainage. I'm then filling with dug out turves (upside down) and used potting compost from other containers, finishing off with some BFB and fresh multi-purpose compost. This year planning to grow leeks, spinach, endives, carrots and spring onions, with a few annual herbs scattered in for companion planting.

You are an inspiring delight to watch. You have got me out of winter blahs and lazy moods🥰🌹🌿🌹

Last year I gave birth and couldn't take care about garden much. So I planted my tomatoes in the plastic nappy bags. And got surprisingly reach harvest :)

Growing carrots in my kids old baby bath.

I'm a big fan of containers. For the past 14 years I've found I get good results for all types of veg by using large plastic pots (bucket-sized) as miniature raised beds. All I do is cut several 1" diameter drainage holes in the SIDES of the pots, level with the base, then plunge the container into a well-prepared garden bed a depth of 4 inches. Fill with compost, plant your veg, and you have the benefit of a (slightly) raised bed which will water itself to some extent. It needn't look untidy, either. If you arrange a 'raft' of even-sized pots - say, 21 of them in a block 7 wide and 3 deep and spaced as needed (6" between them is probably enough) - the result looks quite smart. It works especially well for tomatoes, sweetcorn, beans, sweet peppers, chilli peppers, and spuds. You can still water as usual, but I'm based in the grey and soggy north of England, so the soil is generally moist enough. Please note that the pots shouldn't have any extra drainage crocks in the bottom; it's important that there's direct contact between the container compost and the garden soil. I must admit that I don't insist on only using food-grade containers. I'll use anything, including the cheapest, grottiest plastic buckets. I'm not fanatical about green issues, nor am I neurotic about my health. I make my own compost to save cash, and if I can grow cheap food as well, I'm happy. 🙂

I love this channel! I'm so grateful that you are sharing your knowledge! Thank you.

Love to see a video on this, thank you for thinking of all of us apartment folk!

Brilliant. Clear, concise, lots of great tips. Many thanks. I'm just starting a container garden and this is what I needed.

Your dog so cute Ben! Loved how you handle the billows of dust from the perlite..most amusing! Will carry on watching..i enjoy. Tx

I once converted an old lamp into a planter for my scindapsus!

Nice video! The oddest containers I've grown veggies in are: Potatoes in old tires. One stacked on top of the other, filled with dirt. The next is herbs in an old boot. A giant size man's work boot works well and it's a novelty you can show your friends.

Great video tutorial Ben. Thanks because I am limited to growing in pots. Lots of useful tips once again.

I bury the bottom 2 inches of black pots in the ground to help get a buffer for the heat from the sun. Seems to help with freezes too.

Thanks Ben!!! Love the brassiere! That tops my quirkiness, I don’t own any! 😆 Sowed zinnias, marigolds, lettuce varieties, creeping thyme and okra. 💐💖🙏🌠🌎🍃🌱🌷💗

I just planted my veggies in container! thanks for the tips.

You and self sufficient me are my favorite channels! 😊